Uchicago - how crushing is the quarter system?
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Anonymous
Doesn't matter. The point is that there's plenty of stress in college. Some kids will find quarters worse, others might prefer it. |
Anonymous
Agree -- my perspective also as a Yale grad with one kid at UChicago and another at Yale. Quarter system is relentless and crushing. |
Anonymous
| Hmm, I went to a college with the quarter system. I had no idea until now that it was considered more difficult. I liked that we had more flexility in the classes and more chances to take electives. But yes, it was really quick-paced and no room for error. |
Anonymous
| ^^ I meant "flexibility" |
Anonymous
Most STEM internships DC looked at started early June till early August, school in the quarter system doesn't let out till mid-June and re-starts late Sept |
Anonymous
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https://blink.ucsd.edu/instructors/resources/academic/calendars/2018.html UCSD for instance and Stanford
https://registrar.stanford.edu/academic-calendar One of DC's friends has found jobs with summer camps, and another with an extended school year program, but the quarter kids seemed to mostly end up in retail jobs :/ |
Anonymous
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I went to a quarter system school (not UChicago). I really liked it. Yes, certain courses get compacted, but others are stretched out. And, you really do have an opportunity to take a lot of different courses. Four classes/quarter was totally doable. How much time you spend in class (or how much reading/homework you have) will depend on your major. There were a lot of tests the first two years, so I guess you are always studying, but I think that's what students are supposed to do?
Engineering did seem like it was tough, but my friends attributed that to the tough grading & learning curve rather than the quarter system. I was a science major & had plenty of time to do my work, do research & have fun. As for the breaks: they felt really natural & no one seemed to have problems finding summer employment/internships. |
Anonymous
Wrong. Look again. WPI finishes in late April/early May and goes back in the early to mid Aug 20’s. Plenty of time. First Quarter - 7 weeks Fall Break - 11 days Second Quarter - 7 weeks Winter Break - 3.5 weeks Third Quarter - 7 weeks Spring Break - 9 days Fourth Quarter - 7 weeks Summer - all of May, June, July, and more than half of August. Companies love the time. You can actually do a summer co-op The 7 week summer semester from May to mid June is OPTIONAL. Same as the 5 week option in July. Again, not all quarter based colleges are the same. |
Anonymous
Lame. It does matter |
Anonymous
Jeez Louise. He's at a big ten engineering school. Wouldn't have gotten into U of C, but did apply and get admitted to some of the quarter schools discussed. He and I discussed the merits of quarters and semesters but in the end it isn't what made him decide. |
Anonymous
| We know kids in semester that lose track of grades and end up having to study for 16 weeks of classes praying their final is enough. Lots of W’s and low grades. I would PREFER a quarter based system for science. It forces you accountable from day one. |
Anonymous
IMO the calendar issue is being blown up for most internships. Kid don't always have a final for every class. In fact my DC usually only has 1, the rest being STEM projects or papers that can be turned in early. So that accounts for about half of a two week overlap and anecdotally I haven't heard of any instances where a company won't work with that. These are just internships. The point for a company is to get early exposure to potentially great full time hires. It is a little more complicated for a kid to work out but as an employer wouldn't you like a kid that can negotiate through a schedule conflict? The exception, as earlier pointed out by another poster, is probably government programs. Sometimes the major IBs with huge internship classes - I do know of one family that flew their kid back to school for a final. It does usually mean they have to take their vacations after, not before, internships. |
Anonymous
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It just depends on the field and the employer.
We've had interns from Northwestern and it's actually great that they can stay on through the end of August. Starting a bit late isn't an issue. |
Anonymous
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I went many years ago to GaTech when it had quarter system (before Georgia board forced GaTech to switch to semesters). I would not survive with semesters...
In my opinion quarter is much better. You do not memorize and keep in your brain material for all classes for whole semester. The key (specially with slow processing) to take as few classes as possible. My golden rule was not more than 2 very challenging classes (not more than 2 Math in one quarter for example) I also periodically was adding extra pass/fail or easy classes to stay full time and not to lose scholarships (I had a few). That strategy worked. Had quite high GPA (above 3.7) in challenging major. I wish my kids would go to college with quarter system. But almost all places have semesters now. |
Anonymous
| I like it when I attended. It was faster paced and you get to cover more subjects in a year than you normally would. |